Jeff Stockwell will write the screenplay for Bedrock Studios. Stockwell isn’t a stranger to book adaptations for kids—he wrote the screenplay for Bridge to Terabithia, too. No word yet on when Wrinkle will be released.

I’m somewhat skeptical of adaptations of L’Engle’s books—in 2002, Disney did a made-for-TV movie of A Ring of Endless Light starring Mischa Barton as Vicky Austen. Just about every major theme and character was significantly watered down. Charlotte Voilkis, L’Engle’s granddaughter (not the author), is executive producing Wrinkle, though, which gives me hope—perhaps she’ll be an advocate for keeping faithful to the book.

Who would you cast as Meg Murry, Charles Wallace and Calvin O’Keefe? What's your favorite line from Wrinkle?

Posted by Trisha on March 22, 2010

Does Nicholas Sparks ever get writer's block? It seems unlikely. Fresh off the release of The Last Song, the popular novelist will publish a 15th book on September 14. Saying Goodbye (Grand Central) is poised to join the rest of the Sparks canon and sounds full of tear-jerking twists.

Like The Notebook, Saying Goodbye centers on the rediscovery of a lost love—and throws in a dying best friend for good measure. But Audrey, who has been diagnosed with cancer, has enough life left in her to revive Renee's memories of the boy she fell in love with during their study abroad trip in Spain more than 20 years ago. Could there be a chance for the two to reconnect? The answers may be predictable, but readers are sure to come along for the ride come September.

Posted by Eliza on March 22, 2010

From zombie spoofs to comics, there's a lot of new content on BookPage.com this week. A few highlights are below—click the book titles to learn more:

Behind-the-book essay about Dawn of the Dreadfulsby Steve HockensmithJohn Harrington wanted to be a fireman, as I recall. Jodi Amlingmeyer wanted to be a teacher. I think Jason Ault wanted to be President of the United States. And me? I got up in front of my fifth-grade class and said this: “When I grow up, I want to write a prequel to a best-selling book about English girls who kill zombies with kung-fu.”

Review of George, Nicholas and Wilhelm by Miranda CarterThere are history books that entertain and others that offer information; some are well-researched and some are well-written. In George, Nicholas and Wilhelm, Miranda Carter has given readers a book so complete that it possesses all of those qualities.

Review of The Art of Choosing by Sheena IyengarCoke or Pepsi. Bush or Gore. Sink or swim. If asked to select from any of these pairs, you might assume taste, political affiliation and basic human nature would influence your respective choices. But in Sheena Iyengar’s view, it’s more likely that emotional ties to a brand, the randomness of where a name appears on a ballot and the notion that survival is still possible are what swayed you in one direction or another.

Behind-the-book essay about Big Nate: In a Class by Himself by Lincoln PeirceI’m a real believer in the light bulb moment—not the Encyclopedia Brown version, in which all the clues fall neatly into place and the mystery is solved (ah-ha!), but the type of real-life experience in which a relatively small event creates a spark that inevitably becomes something grander and more exciting. When kids ask me “when did you know you wanted to be a cartoonist?” I tell them about my light bulb moment.

I've seen several posts about covers in book blogs this week, many inspired by a making-of-a-cover trailer released by Orbit Books. In this particular post, Katherine points how (humorously) alike two covers seem to be: Eve by Elissa Elliott (Bantam) and Twilight of Avalon by Anna Elliott (Touchstone):

Of course, it's not hard to notice the similarities on these covers, as they're right next to each other in a bookstore. When have you felt cover deja-vu?

Ever felt frustrated because you don't have a concrete answer for "what kind of books do you like?" In this post, Amy reflects on not having a defined sense of taste. She comments: "I'm wondering if because I don't have a clearly identifiable pattern of what I like, my recommendations are less weighty." Well, I don't think that's true. Just because a person doesn't exclusively read fantasy doesn't mean she can't recommend a book in that genre. But Amy's post did get me thinking about pinning down my own book preferences, which range from literary fiction, to classics, to "women's fiction" and YA. And cookbooks. And short stories. And political bios. And how-to books. And poetry. Hm. "Literary identity" is hard to pin down, isn't it?

Ever since Dolen Perkins-Valdez wrote a behind-the-book essay for BookPage.com, I've been curious about her debut novel, Wench. The story's about a group of slave women who go with their white masters to a resort in Ohio every year, and the resort is based on a real place. Diane of Bibliophile By the Sea enjoyed the book, writing, The author did an amazing job creating memorable, and vividly portrayed characters that will stay with me for a long while. So is the case for other aspects of the novel: like the pain, anguish, physical and sexual abuse some had experienced. It is a story that brilliantly detailed the emotions slave women experienced during this awful period of America's past. It was interesting to read both author and reader reflections on Wench—I may have to pick this one up.

Posted by Eliza on March 19, 2010

GalleyCat posted the Ramona and Beezus trailer this morning, and it was the first I’d heard of a movie adaptation of Beverly Cleary’s classic.

My first question is: Why is it called Ramona and Beezus? (The names are reversed in the book title, since it’s from Beezus’s point of view.)

What do you think of the trailer?

I guess the fantastical scenes are supposed to depict Ramona’s big imagination, but they seem too dreamy for the Quimby family. I’ll always remember when Mr. Quimby lost his job in Ramona and Her Father, and the family cat ate the Jack-o-Lantern because they couldn’t afford fancy cat food. Or when Ramona stuck her doll, Bendix, in the oven. The Ramona books were great because they showed how life isn’t perfect, and growing up isn't easy. I’m not sure that will come across in the movie.

Posted by Trisha on March 19, 2010

This June, three new writers with literary connections are making their debuts.

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First up, Carin Clevidence. She's the stepdaughter of Annie Dillard, the author of Pilgrim at Tinker Creek and other books. Her debut, The House on Salt Hay Road (FSG), is set at the seaside just before the fatal Long Island hurricane of 1938. FSG won the book at auction last year, and since they're one of the best at launching literary debuts, we figure MFA grad Clevidence has found the right place to start.

Chris Binchy is the nephew of, you guessed it, beloved Irish novelist Maeve Binchy. His American debut, Five Days Apart (Harper), sounds a lot like his aunt's work—a family drama, with themes of hope and redemption—and is actually his fifth novel. Will he make a splash on US shores?

And finally, there's Maggie Pouncey—daughter of novelist Peter Pouncey, whose Rules for Old Men Waiting was one of our favorite books of 2005. Her novel, Perfect Reader (Random House), follows a young woman who moves back home to a sleepy college town to confront the legacy of her father, a famous academic who, it turns out, had more than a few secrets.

These three aren't the first to follow in the footsteps of a literary relative, of course—Christopher Rice and Joe Hill spring to mind. Who's your favorite author with a literary legacy?

Posted by Eliza on March 19, 2010

Patricia Cornwell fans have been waiting a long time for a movie; she’s been writing crime novels since 1991, and Scarpetta adaptations have been rumored for years. In April, the wait is over—sort of. The adaptation will be a made-for-TV movie on Lifetime, and the heroine is Monique Lamont, the Boston District Attorney of At Risk (2006) and The Front (2008).

Andie MacDowell will play Lamont, and Daniel Sunjata is state investigator Win Garano. At Risk will air on April 10 at 9 pm, and The Front will air the following Saturday at the same time. Read more on Cornwell’s website.

Here’s the trailer:

Will you tune in? I don’t usually watch Lifetime movies, although I got hooked on Cornwell when I wrote a review for BookPage in the fall. This adaptation might be worth a watch to tide me over until Scarpetta hits the big screen: After years of speculation and Cornwell’s own personal lobbying for actresses to take the part, Angelina Jolie has signed on to play the smart and sexy M.E. (Read more in the L.A. Times.)

Posted by Trisha on March 19, 2010

It's a pretty safe bet that anyone who finishes Jonathan Franzen's The Corrections will 1.) immediately urge someone else to read it and 2.) immediately ask where Franzen's next novel is. There's been no satisfactory answer to that question for years, at least not until summer of 2009, when the New Yorker printed a Franzen piece that gave readers a taste of the long-awaited next novel.

We've known for a while that Freedom will be released in September—and as the publication date nears, some details on the book have been appearing. In the Wall Street Journal, Jonathan Galassi, Franzen's editor, said the novel was "a very powerful, amazing book about the disillusion of marriage. It's about the challenges and costs of personal freedom, and the burdens of it and the opportunities of it. It's about ecology, personal politics and general issues; it's about Iraq."

Here's our summary of the summary: Freedom centers on Patty and Walter Burglund, a couple who lead the first wave of eco-conscious city-dwellers to colonize a slowly gentrifying neighborhood in St. Paul. They're "pioneers of Whole Foods" who lead an exemplary yuppified lifestyle—until they don't. Suddenly their son would rather live in the McMansion next door with their Republican neighbors; Walter is working for a coal company and Patty is falling apart.

Complete publisher description after the jump. Will Freedom be as timely and engrossing as The Corrections? Will Oprah read it? Will you?

From Farrar, Straus & Giroux:

Patty and Walter Berglund were the new pioneers of old St. Paul--the gentrifiers, the hands-on parents, the avant-garde of the Whole Foods generation. Patty was the ideal sort of neighbor, who could tell you where to recycle your batteries and how to get the local cops to actually do their job. She was an enviably perfect mother and the wife of Walter's dreams. Together with Walter--environmental lawyer, commuter cyclist, total family man--she was doing her small part to build a better world.

But now, in the new millennium, the Berglunds have become a mystery. Why has their teenage son moved in with the aggressively Republican family next door? Why has Walter taken a job working with Big Coal? What exactly is Richard Katz--outré rocker and Walter's college best friend and rival--still doing in the picture? Most of all, what has happened to Patty? Why has the bright star of Barrier Street become "a very different kind of neighbor," an implacable Fury coming unhinged before the street's attentive eyes?

Posted by Eliza on March 18, 2010

A couple of months ago I posted about the Baby-sitters Club prequel, and it was so much fun to read the comments. (“Oh my gosh, YES, I am excited,” wrote one reader. Another confessed to owning 100+ BSC books.)

Well, now I am happy to say (brag) that I spoke with Ann M. Martin herself on Tuesday. The BSC prequel, The Summer Before, will be available in stores two weeks from today, and on that date my interview will also be posted on BookPage.com.

Until then, I’ll tease you with a few tidbits:

Ann M. Martin is most like Mary Anne, although her favorite babysitter is Kristy (who is based on her best friend).

There could be a reunion special in the future. Possibly. If The Summer Before sells well and Martin/Scholastic are eager to publish another book. These days, Claudia, Stacy and the gang would be in their mid-30s—and Martin thinks they would still be friends, although scattered across the country.

Martin loves hearing from fans. She said: “It’s really gratifying for me now to hear from adult fans who read the books when they were kids, who have now grown up to be writers themselves, to become editors, teachers, librarians. I think that’s fabulous.” (So she should read this blog, huh?)

And just for fun, here’s an excerpt from The Summer Before, just to get you back in a Stoneybrook frame of mind…

The Baby-sitters Club. I’m proud to say it was totally my idea, even though the four of us worked it out together. “Us” is Mary Anne Spier, Claudia Kishi, Stacey McGill, and me—Kristy Thomas. But that was at the beginning of seventh grade, after the summer in which my friendship with Claudia nearly fell apart, Mary Anne began to find out who she was, Claudia experienced her first love, and an unhappy girl left New York City and moved to our town. It was quite a summer.

Posted by Eliza on March 18, 2010

Dav Pilkey has agreed to write four new installments in the Captain Underpants series—the first new books since 2006. The first one’s called The Adventures of Ook and Gluk, Kung-Fu Cavemen from the Future and will be published on August 10.

Although parents sometimes complain about the potty humor in the books—in 2002, Captain Underpants and the Perilous Plot of Professor Poopypants was removed from an elementary school in North Dakota—I personally know several little boys who will be thrilled with this news. (The entire series has 45 million copies in print, and The Adventures of Ook and Gluk will have a print run of 1 million.)

Here’s what Pilkey has to say on his return:

“I think fans of Captain Underpants will be very happy with this new book. It has all of the action, laffs and ridiculousness that kids love, plus all the unapologetic irreverence and questionable potty humor that grumpy curmudgeons love to complain about. It’s got something for everybody!”

Will you pick up the new Captain Underpants, which presents the “sensational saga of two silly caveboys”?

Related in BookPage:Read a review of Captain Underpants and the Invasion of the Incredibly Naughty Cafeteria Ladies from Outer Space.